To bookmakers, despite his immense popularity, the concept of Travis Hunter winning the Heisman Trophy was a longshot. Quarterbacks have won 20 of the last 24 awards. Cornerbacks or wide receivers winning it is a rarity, and some bookmakers were unsure if Hunter could sustain the rigors of playing over 100 snaps each game. As such, he opened as a +3500 underdog to win the award last summer.
Yet, as the Heisman Trust prepares to hand out its annual award for individual excellence in college football, it appears to be a near-certainty that Colorado’s two-way superstar will be this season’s recipient: Sportsbooks still listing Heisman winner odds have Hunter listed around -2000. That’s bad news for the sportsbooks.
According to ESPN BET, Hunter holds 17.5% of the tickets and 31.5% of the handle to win this season’s awards, trailing only Boise State RB Ashton Jeanty (45.8% bets, 37.7% handle), who is also a Heisman finalist by virtue of his historic rushing season. Though Hunter is a virtual lock to win, Jeanty pulling the upset would not help the books either.
“We’re not in good shape on Hunter and we’re not in good shape on Jeanty. So just to sum it up, we’re not in good shape,” DraftKings sportsbooks director Johnny Avello told ESPN.
And while the books prepare for a loss, the betting public is happily ready to cash their tickets.
“It’s going to be very good for our customers,” said Caesars head of football Joey Feazel. “[There were] certainly some bets on Travis Hunter leading into the year and throughout the year, probably one of our most popular selections throughout the summer.”
From the time the market opened until Week 1 of the season, the 21-year-old Hunter took 17% of bets and 16.2% of handle at ESPN BET, just behind Oregon QB Dillon Gabriel, the preseason favorite for the award and another finalist going to New York. From that point on, it was all Hunter, who took the largest percentage of tickets and money until just after Week 12, when Jeanty began seeing a surge in action.
It’s not a coincidence it happened that way. Hunter was not the favorite for the honor until after Week 11 (+125) and didn’t show odds-on pricing until after Week 12 (-400). At that point, hopeful bettors threw their cash behind Jeanty, but the damage was already done from the sportsbooks’ perspective.
As Hunter dazzled early in the season, his odds began to shorten, but briefly lengthened to +1100 after he was injured during Colorado’s Week 7 loss to Kansas State. They lengthened again to +2500 when Hunter put up just two catches for 17 yards the next week, but he inserted himself back into the conversation with a 153-yard, two-touchdown performance in Week 9, bringing his odds back down to +375.
All of those big plus-money bets created enormous liability throughout the campaign for sportsbooks, who were also relying on Colorado not being competitive to drag down Hunter’s Heisman argument.
“As far as Hunter is concerned, he plays both ways and the team was winning,” Avello said. “If Colorado wasn’t a winning team this year, if they were a four- or five-win team, he probably wouldn’t have won it. But I think the fact that they did win and he helped them in a lot of those wins… it played out well for him.”
Bookmakers also cite the lack of a standout quarterback as a reason for Hunter and Jeanty standing to win this year’s award. While that’s likely going to hurt sportsbooks’ bottom line in the end, the football fans in them can at least appreciate what they’ve seen this season.
I think it’s good for the sport to see that instead of it just being a quarterback award,” Feazel said, “It is really going to go to the most outstanding college football player this year.
ESPN betting analyst Pamela Maldonado contributed reporting for this story.
